Victorian Minister for Energy, Lily D’Ambrosio Victorian Minister for Energy hosted an energy efficiency roundtable on Thursday March 12, as the Andrews government gears up to reshape state energy policy. Victorians have high hopes the Labor government will throw its weight behind … Continue reading Vic Labor govt prepares to reshape state energy policy

Federal opposition leader Bill Shorten has entered the Renewable Energy Target debate. In today’s Australian FinancialReview,Mr Shorten called on the Abbott government to “ditch” the Warburton review and said any compromise on the scheme would be on the Labor party’s terms.

“If the Prime Minister wants to work with Labor to fix the mess he has created, he first has to rule out the recommendations in the Warburton review,” Mr Shorten said.

“That’s job one for Tony Abbott. This is the Prime Minister’s report with the industry and job-decimating recommendations he wanted. It belongs in the bin.”

“They have wrecked the political consensus, they have smashed ­business and investor confidence, and thousands of jobs are now on the line.”

According to Phillip Coorey’s AFR report, Labor would back the retention of the small-scale solar component of the Renewable Energy Target, while floating the idea of maintaining but deferring the 41-terawatt-hour large-scale target.
Friends of the Earth has welcomed aspects of Labor’s comments on the Renewable Energy Target.

The panel reviewing the Renewable Energy Target (headed by Dick Warburton who suspects the academies of science across the G20 nations may be telling fibs about human-induced global warming) has released a relatively brief discussion paper as part of a request for submissions.

The large-scale renewables sector may be the beneficiary of the WA Senate rerun, with a Perth-based electoral analyst and blogger saying a likely even left/right split the most likely outcome – making it more difficult for a Coalition government to scrap or castrate the renewable energy target.

Given the tendency for by-elections to result in a swing against the government, a WA-based electoral expert believes that the WA Senate election will likely result in a three Liberal, two Labor and one Green split. The result would mean that it will be difficult for the Abbott Government to get its legislation through. Continue reading “WA Senate re-run may give reprieve to renewables”

The surprise return of the Labor government in South Australia means that the book is not entirely closed on Australia’s mainland for renewable energy.

Indeed, while the broad thrust of national renewable energy policy will be directed by the Abbott government, the return of the Jay Weatherill Labor government in Adelaide, the election of Mike Hodgman in Tasmania, and the ambition of the ACT Labor government means that there are some counters to the apparently ideologically-driven opposition to renewables in the Federal government.

As RenewEconomy has noted before, it is not by accident that the three states and territories most supportive of renewable energy in Australia are those with no, or relative weak, fossil fuel interests.

Today is a good news day for wind energy in Victoria. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation announced it will provide a $70 million loan to Pacific Hydro to complete the final stage of the Portland Wind Energy Project.

The $10 billion green investment bank, set to be scrapped by the incoming Coalition government, has issued a loan to Pacific Hydro to build the final stage of its Portland wind farm in what is likely to be among the bank’s final deals.

The project will create hundreds of jobs, increase market competition and provide enough clean energy to power 31,000 homes, according to Pacific Hydro.

The CEFC’s backing of the final stage of the Portland wind energy project is a welcome boost for Victoria’s wind energy sector. It will create jobs in the South West while cleaning up the state’s polluting energy sector. The ambitious Portland Wind Energy Project was approved by the Bracks Labor government and has been over a decade in the making.